


Never drink of the devil's water

by ladyofpride



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, Captivity, Could be platonic, Earth 2 - Freeform, F/M, Henrison - Freeform, Kidnapping, M/M, Multi, Stockholm Syndrome, Violence, You Have Been Warned, and I mean that, some language, sort of, this is a very sad origin story - Freeform, your choice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2015-11-24
Packaged: 2018-05-01 19:22:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5217770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyofpride/pseuds/ladyofpride
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He had a wife and a child once. Then a demon in a whirlwind of light invaded his home and stole them both away.</p><p>Grief was his only companion for nearly thirteen years.</p><p>Then the lightning struck.</p><p>[[An Earth-2 origin story of sorts, where the identity of Zoom is less of a mystery and Harrison Wells regrets ever befriending a man named Henry Allen...]]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Never drink of the devil's water

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Enina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enina/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This started off as a short introspective piece, but as soon as I added Harrison to the mix the whole thing blew up in my face. _*tosses paper into the air*_ I give up. Tom is amazing and his character(s) control my life.
> 
> I surrender.

_“Isn't it funny? I'm enjoying my hatred so much more than I ever enjoyed love. Love is temperamental. Tiring. It makes demands. Love uses you, changes its mind. But hatred, now…that's something you can use. Sculpt. Wield. It's hard, or soft, however you need it. Love humiliates you, but Hatred cradles you.”_

~Jane Fitch (White Oleander)

 

~***~

He was a husband once.

He was a father too.

A single night changed all that.

~***~

They thought he did it.

The first officer on the scene found him kneeling over his wife’s body, her face cool to the touch. He had woken up on the floor beside her scant moments ago, feeling sluggish and concussed, only to find his son missing and the murder weapon in his hand.

For all the world, it looked as though he killed her.

They arrested him immediately. Didn’t give a damn what he had to say. Even his neighbour, the detective, who had known him and his family for years, afforded him only a cursory glance before ducking into the house, clearly ashamed to have been friends with a murderer.

That’s what they called him anyway. A murderer. Just stuffed him into the back of a police cruiser and drove him down to the precinct, then made him wait an hour in a holding cell before another detective dragged him to an interrogation room and asked: “Where’s Barry?”

His mind was a mess, but he remembered tucking Barry into bed that night. He could also remember Barry running down the stairs when Nora screamed, wanting to help.

He had no recollection of his son ever leaving the house.

“What do you mean?” he asked. “What do you mean ‘ _Where’s Barry_ ’?”

The man stared at him, expression cold and resolute. Then he folded his hands neatly together over the table and said, “He’s not at the house, Henry.”

He couldn’t think of anything to say the man then. Part of him hoped that Barry fled in the ensuing madness. His boy was smart. He would know well enough to run away…

Words failed him altogether. He choked on a sob and covered his face with his hands.

Part of him already knew that Barry was probably dead.

~***~

They sentenced him to life without parole.

No one ever came to visit. His whole world was packed into a small prison cell, 6 by 8 feet large. Just a life in a box, alone with his memories and nightmares.

Often, he would dream of the demon, the spectre in the red and yellow light. Vaguely, he could still remember the way it whirled around his wife. He could remember, too, the way she cried out for him, reaching for him, begging for help.

His beautiful wife Nora…

Then he would dream of Barry, small and cheery, always with a smile on his face. Little Barry, who always fought the good fight against the schoolyard bullies, even when he was outnumbered.

 _Barry_ , whose body the authorities never found…

The popular theory was that he killed the boy and carried him off to god-knows-where. Nora was murdered for her silence.

He could honestly care less what the public thought of him. He didn’t even care that he was in prison now. The thing that truly kept him up at night was the fact that the man who murdered his wife and child was still out there somewhere

And there wasn’t a goddamn thing Henry could do to stop him.

~***~

A little over thirteen years into his sentence, S.T.A.R. Labs’ particle accelerator finally went online.

He wasn’t really interested in that sort of thing, but he was still fascinated by the storm clouds that gathered overhead the night Harrison Wells flipped the switched. Nothing came of it, of course, not even a drop a rain, but that was still the night that Henry tasted ozone on the tip of his tongue, that the hair stood up on the back of his neck.

He wandered over to the window then, wondering when the storm would burst. He only felt the buzz of the electric when he reached out to touch the bars, too late to pull back when he finally closed the circuit.

Pain lanced up his arms and legs as he was propelled back across the cell. He was unconscious before he even hit the floor.

The date was December the 11th, 2013.

It was the first day of his nine month coma.

~***~

The first thing that he did when he woke up was run.

He didn’t have a destination in mind, just wanted to be free again. It felt so good to be outside after all those years, far from the prison and his hospital bed. He actually cried when he finally skidded to a halt in an alleyway behind a restaurant, caught off guard by the smell of good food and the sound of people laughing.

 _Then_ he knew his destination.

The house looked the same from the outside. Inside, it had long since been renovated, but in his mind’s eye he could still see where Nora was killed, stretched out on the kitchen floor, a single stab wound to the heart.

Angry, he clenched his teeth.

To his left, he heard a gasp.

It was a woman, the new owner of his old house. She stared at him for a moment before opening her mouth to scream, pivoting sharply on her heel to run away.

He hadn’t meant to startle her, but he couldn’t afford to let her call the police. So he darted forward, hand raised, and fisted it in her hair. Then he swung her head around into the wall.

She slumped to the ground, unconscious.

He ran again.

~***~

He spent a long time alone after that on the outskirts of Central City, stealing food whenever the opportunity presented itself. He ran whenever he had the chance, feeling as though he was getting faster, except for those rare moments when he could barely move at all. In those times, it almost felt as though someone was tapping into the same unseen force that now flowed through his veins. It was the first sign that his powers had a finite reserve.

Confused, he turned to Harrison Wells for help.

Initially, the man was reluctant to do anything at all, having been cornered by Henry in the dead of night in the parking lot outside S.T.A.R. Labs. Henry did a lap around the building once then to convince the man he wasn’t crazy, stopping abruptly in front of him, his lagging wind trail kicking dust and stray leaves up into the air

Harrison Wells was quiet for a considerably long time. Eventually though he said, “You’re Henry Allen, aren’t you?”

Defensively, Henry said, voice quivering. “I’m not a murderer.”

“I didn’t say you were. I just—”

“ _Help me_ ,” he pleaded, choking up on several years’ worth of unshed tears. “If I was a murderer, I could’ve killed you by now, but I have no intention of killing you at all.”

“But you want to kill _someone_ ,” Harrison replied, cluing in to Henry’s agenda alarmingly quick. “Care to tell me who?”

Henry contemplated running again. Far away. Farther than the east coast. Farther than the whole goddamn waking world...

His misery won him out though, a brief vision of Barry and Nora’s smiling faces at the back of his mind reminding him of what he promised himself he would do.

“Him,” he said softly. “The man who killed my wife and child.”

Harrison cocked his head to one side, curious. “Do you know who that is then?”

“No.”

“Not a clue?”

Henry shrugged. “I don’t know…the fastest man alive?”

The scientist made a face, as though he thought poorly of Henry’s choice of words. “I see…”

“ _Please_ ,” Henry sobbed. “Don’t you have a daughter?”

After a brief, tense moment, Harrison nodded. “I do.”

“And what would you do to him if he ever hurt her?”

That did it then, connected the two points, brought both men to the same low level of primal thought…

Harrison straightened his glasses and said, “I’d kill him.”

~***~

If Harrison was anything at all, he was resourceful.

He holed Henry up in the lowest sublevel basement of S.T.A.R. Labs, a place he assured Henry none of his employees dared to venture. It was no mystery why. It looked as though an explosion had gone off down there.

“Progress,” was all that Harrison would say when he noticed the question forming on Henry’s lips. “ _‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained’_ , Mr. Allen…”

To be honest, he suspected it had something to do with the night the particle accelerator went online.

He knew better than to stare a gift horse in the mouth though, so he accepted everything Harrison had to offer him with silent gratitude. Even the treadmill, which baffled him more than anything else.

It was more of a ‘room’ actually, cylindrical along its length and covered with LED lights. The room had been built by one of Harrison’s employees as a form of bomb shelter a year ago but his project was put on hold when he passed away. Harrison had since replaced the floor with some sort of modified polyurethane running belt and fitted either end with reinforced walls, on the odd chance that Henry ever went flying off while running.

“…I hardly think I need the exercise.”

“The treadmill is more for me, actually.” Harrison replied, as though he were making a joke. Then he elaborated: “This way I can monitor you as you run. I want to know why you keep losing your speed periodically. ”

“Any guesses?”

“Not so far. Have you noticed a pattern yet? When you eat too little, perhaps?”

It seemed as though he was always starving these days. Thankfully, Harrison knew to hook him up to an IV bag whenever he looked faint.

“No,” Henry replied.

“Then hop on,” he said.

One of Harrison’s other gifts came in the form of a suit. Some black tripolymer thing that one of his other employees had designed for Central City’s fire brigade. It was surprisingly light weight and flexible

It also didn’t catch fire whenever Henry ran too long on the treadmill.

“I like it,” Henry said off-handedly one day. It had a hood, which irritated him a little, but otherwise it felt like a second skin.

Harrison stared at him for a long moment, blue eyes narrowed in concentration. “So do I…but I think you could use a different colour. Black is…”

“Menacing?” He supplied.

A shadow passed over Harrison’s face. He adjusted the frame of his glasses in a poor attempt to hide it. “Exactly.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

“If you ever plan on venturing outside this facility again, then yes.”

Harrison’s statement confused him. “Why would that matter?”

“Because you look like some of the other metahumans.”

Henry had no idea what he was talking about. The day after he escaped from the hospital, he kept far away from public spaces. Hunting Harrison down had been his only foray back into the city. He hadn’t left S.T.A.R. Labs since then.

His confusion must have shown on his face, because Harrison shook his head and turned away. “Give me a day, and I’ll bring you down a TV.”

And he did, along with a stack of old newspapers dating back to the beginning of 2014. Almost every headline highlighted some atrocious crime or incredible feat undertaken by people with extraordinary powers. They were criminals, most of them, all with the exception of one.

“This guy,” Henry asked, holding up yesterday’s paper, which depicted a buff young man wearing blue trousers and a red, leather jacket. The old WWI helmet on his head was a bit of an odd touch. “He’s a hero?”

“That’s the Flash,” Harrison sighed, glancing up briefly from his work station. He was doing something to the suit, possibly fitting the hood with a radio like he suggested a couple of days ago. “He _is_ a hero, though a poorly misguided one at that.”

“Oh?”

“Sees the world only in black or white. Which is why—” Harrison shook out the suit, giving it the once over before rising to his feet, “—I think you should choose another colour. If he sees you like this, he’s only going to jump to conclusions.”

Henry could understand his concern, but a part of him didn’t give a damn. Especially when he skimmed the article.

He found it oddly ominous that _The Citizen_ had decided to dub this hero ‘ _The Fastest Man Alive_!’…

~***~

The Flash _was_ a hero though.

He fought the good fight. Saved lives. Taught people they didn’t need to fear the sudden onslaught of metahumans that had invaded their sleepy little city.

Henry snuck out one night to watch him. Didn’t address him, just stood off to one side in the shadows. He observed him intercept a thief at the National Museum, some man who came armed with nothing more a fiddle.

Henry assumed the instrument was a weapon, but he never got the chance to see it in action before the Flash arrived on scene in a burst of light, knocking it clear out of his hand.

It was a brief encounter. The Flash was efficient, though gentle, even when the thief hurled every manner of insult at him as they waited for the police to arrive.

Henry still couldn’t help himself. He knew he himself left lightning in his wake whenever he tapped into his powers, but watching it from afar, to see it trailing after The Flash once he left the museum…

“It has to be him.”

Harrison typically ignored him whenever he was hard at work, as he was now, poring over some status report on his laptop. The mystery of the fluctuations in Henry’s speed continued to astound him, so much so that he’d taken to absent-mindedly chewing on his pen.

At least they knew that Henry was getting faster.

After a moment of silence, Harrison’s brain obviously caught up with Henry’s statement. Brow’s furrowed, he looked up from his laptop and said. “I highly doubt that.”

“Why? He moves like him.”

“So do you.”

“I know _I_ didn’t kill my family.”

“And what makes you think he did?”

“He’s the only other speedster.”

Harrison sighed. It looked for a moment as though he wanted to snap at Henry, but instead he simply adjusted the frame of his glasses and said, “The Flash has only demonstrated his powers for as long as you’ve apparently had yours. I don’t think he could run this fast fourteen years ago.”

Henry still wasn’t convinced.

He turned back to the small television propped up on an old wooden desk in the corner and watched as _‘the Flash’_ remarked on his latest capture, some contortionist dressed in rags. The news reporter raised her mic to ask him a question, but already he was off, a spark of lightning left in his wake.

It was then that Henry consciously felt it.

A _tug_. A subtle weakening of his leg muscles…

“He’s the one who’s been draining me,” He said aloud.

Harrison glanced up at him again, unamused. “Is he, now?”

Angry, Henry sprinted across the floor, leaning forward over Harrison’s work bench. Even that small burst of energy felt as though it took a little extra effort this time. “I’m not wrong about _this_.”

Startled as he was, Harrison collected himself relatively quickly. He took off his glasses and placed them gently on the desk beside him. Then he folded his hands together over his lap, glancing down and away, as though something important had finally fallen into place inside his tremendous brain. After a moment of consideration he said, “That actually makes perfect sense...”

Gradually, Henry leaned back. He had a temper, and he knew it, but he also knew that Harrison didn’t deserve to be the subject of his ire. “And why is that?”

“Because I made you,” Harrison replied faintly. “Both of you.”

~***~

The night the particle accelerator went online, there _was_ an explosion.

Harrison explained to him that all that excess energy had to be vented out under the building to prevent a much larger blast that could’ve potentially killed hundreds of people. Nobody died as a result of his quick thinking, but Harrison still speculated that it was because of him that these metahumans had been cropping up all over Central City as of late.

Including Henry and the Flash.

“Is that why you’re helping me?” Henry asked. “Because you feel guilty?”

“Somewhat,” Harrison huffed. Clearly he was not accustomed to making such huge mistakes and was even less comfortable with confessing to them.

“Even if you gave a little boost to Central City’s criminal element, you still gave _me_ hope. I can never thank you enough for that.”

“ _Hope_?” Harrison muttered, lips curled in a sneer. “For what? _Revenge_? At the end of the day, I’m technically helping you hon your skills to _kill_ a man.”

For the first time since they started this endeavour, Henry got the feeling that Harrison didn’t fully support his goals.

Jaw tense, Henry turned away from his workbench, heading for to the treadmill.

“Wait!” Harrison snapped, taking up after him. “Listen. I—”

Henry pivoted suddenly. So suddenly, in fact, that Harrison very nearly collided with him.

Raising his hands, Henry grabbed the man by his arms, pulling him in close. Harrison hissed in pain. “ _Why_? I only sought you out so that you could help me. If you have no intention of doing that anymore, then what am I still doing here?”

“Because I have another plan,” the man replied. “Because if you’re fast enough, you can still save them.”

It took him a second to figure out _who_ it was Harrison was referring to. When he did, it sent shivers down his spine. “What do you mean?”

Harrison shifted uncomfortably in his grasp, so Henry loosened his hold. “Theoretically, if you can get up to the right speed, time and space could very well be your plaything.”

“How so?”

Harrison grinned. “The particle accelerator.”

Henry dropped his arms altogether. Lord almighty, did this man ever dream big... “You’re crazy.”

“I’m really not.” Harrison straightened out the sleeves of his coat, mildly irritated by the rough treatment. “If you collided head on with a hydrogen particle, a wormhole would—”

“ _Stop_.” He didn’t want to think about it. _Time travel_ —that’s what Harrison was offering to him now, wasn’t he? “Just, _please_ …stop.”

Harrison lowered his gaze. He stared at Henry’s chest for a minute before straightening himself up again, lips pressed into a thin line. Quietly, he asked. “Do you really believe I’m crazy?”

Honestly?

…No.

Harrison Wells was a man who dealt with facts. He was a pioneer of science and a father and the only man on the face of the planet who believed that Henry Allen hadn’t killed his family…

Sighing, Henry tried to relax. He never used to be such a temperamental man. He couldn’t even remember yelling at Nora _once_.

“I don’t doubt your ingenuity, Dr. Wells, but sometimes I wonder how you came to develop such an inane sense of invincibility.”

“I just have to look at you.”

That wasn’t the sort of answer Henry was expecting. “What?”

Sighing himself, Harrison put his hands on his hips. “I myself am no stranger to grief. All that I know is that _if_ I can create the fastest man alive, and _if_ I can help him restore what was once stolen from him, then I can possibly help myself too. Call me crazy if you will, I really don’t give a damn—I’m not an idle man. I make my own future.”

Henry never wholly understood why Harrison was so invested in helping him with his powers until now. He had always assumed that the man was driven purely by his quest for knowledge, that in unravelling the mystery surrounding Henry Allen he could somehow achieve greater feats in the world of science.

It never occurred to him that Harrison Wells had lost someone too.

“I apologize,” he said quietly. “I’m not as calm or collected as I once was.”

Harrison clapped him on the shoulder. Then turned away and walked back to his workstation.

Softly, the man said, “Who can blame you?”

~***~

He spent almost every waking hour running.

He didn’t have a name for the source of his power, but it felt like the ocean, terrible and deep. He could feel it forever lapping at the core of his very being before just as suddenly retreating, like waves as they sucked and swelled against the shore. He was always connected it, always wading farther out into the sea, but so long as the Flash continued dipping into their shared reservoir Henry knew he would never have complete control over this incredible beast.

 _“One **thousand** miles per hour,”_ Harrison announced into the com link in his hood. _“For a second there, I think you actually fluctuated up to one thousand and four. That’s even faster than the Flash.”_

Henry jumped out of the treadmill, leaning forward to brace his hands against his knees, gasping for breath. Usually, he didn’t feel this winded. It was only until the very end of this session that he found his powers suddenly dwindling, never minding that he just broke his personal record.

“Who is he anyway?” Henry gasped. “I mean, he doesn’t wear a mask. Someone must know.”

“His name is Jay Garrick. He was a lesser known chemist and physicist before the night he was electrocuted. He’s dedicated his life solely to fighting crime now though.”

_‘Jay Garrick.’_

Henry had never met the man and already he hated him.

Changing the topic of conversation, he asked, “How fast exactly do I need to run for your experiment?”

“Mach 2,” Harrison replied, words muffled as he began chewing on his pen. He was staring at something on his computer screen, utterly consumed. “Which is approximately one thousand, five hundred, and thirty five miles per hour. But you’ve improved your speed by almost three hundred miles per hour in the last two weeks alone. You could be ready by the end of next month.”

Henry wanted to be excited for all the progress he had made so far, but there was still a caveat to their plan: “You’re talking about a _steady_ state though, aren’t you? I have to get up to Mach 2 and maintain that speed?”

Harrison’s gaze flickered over to him briefly. “Yes…but one thing at a time, Mr. Allen. We’ll deal with the Flash when the time comes.”

“And how exactly do you plan to _‘deal’_ with him?”

Harrison glanced up at him again. The light from his computer screen glared off his lenses, almost effectively masking his eyes from sight. It didn’t do anything to hide the way the corner his jaw twitched irritably though, as if Harrison didn’t quite agree with what it was Henry was insinuating.

“I’ll talk to him,” Harrison finally said. Then, under his breath: “ _Again_.”

Henry didn’t try to hide his surprise. “You’ve _already_ talked to him?”

“Tried to, anyway. He paid me an unexpected visit last week. Was very terse. Almost immature, I would argue…”

Henry could feel his whole body tensing. “What did you say to him?”

“Not much. He had a very roundabout way of telling me that he suspected there was a connection between the particle accelerator and the appearance of the metahumans. He doesn’t have any proof though.”

Agitated as he was, Henry didn’t say what was on his mind: that he didn’t think Harrison should tell Jay Garrick _anything_ , that he didn’t even believe Jay Garrick would ever feel compelled to help them in their little endeavour…

From what he’d heard of the man, there was a pretty good chance he _wouldn’t_ advocate using their shared power to travel through time.

“I’m going to run some more.”

“…You should take a break, Henry.”

“Later,” he replied, stepping back onto the treadmill.

He didn’t want to think about the Flash anymore.

~***~

But he did.

Almost obsessively.

Whenever Harrison wasn’t around, he would slip out of the lab and stalk Central City’s shining hero. It wasn’t hard. All he had to do was find a metahuman who was up and about in the dead of night, whether they were robbing a bank or gunning down the police, and wait. Garrick would always come.

Almost like clockwork.

The man had his fair share of close calls with some of the metahumans he encountered, but he hadn’t lost to them yet. He was powerful, that much was clear, but Henry didn’t know whether or not he was genuinely faster.

So he chased him.

The Flash always gave it his all, arms and legs pumping, sweat dripping from his brow. Henry trailed far enough behind that he shouldn’t have been noticed, but even with that familiar tug in the pit of his stomach, a sure sign that Garrick was syphoning his energy away, Henry didn’t feel the least bit tired. In fact, he felt almost _galvanized_ now, as though the energy was flowing back into him, away from—

He should have clued into what was happening sooner, but Garrick slowed suddenly, just as Henry was picking up speed, and they collided while going maybe 500 mph on a busy street.

Henry had no idea how many far he rolled when he hit the ground, only that he twisted his wrist at an odd angle and broke a couple of ribs. He had never fallen like that before, so the pain was sharp and new. Even the few times he had collided with one of Harrison’s padded walls, he’d never injured himself as badly as this.

Garrick didn’t look like he was in much better condition. His helmet had been knocked clear off his head and he was still lying on the ground, groaning, hand twitching as he slowly regained consciousness.

Frightened, Henry struggled to his feet. He pulled up his hood then, more out of anxiety than anything else, vibrating as Garrick lifted his head off the ground, bleeding profusely from a cut above his left brow.

Then he took one look at Henry and scrambled to his own feet, eyes wide with fear.

Breathlessly, the man said, “What are you?”

Henry didn’t have an answer to that.

Off to his right, he heard the snap of a camera. He turned his head to find a small crowd gathering on either side of the street, excited to finally see their hero in action. They cowered away though when Henry’s eyes fell on them, one man even tripping as he tried to back away.

Henry didn’t know what was happening, only that he could almost _taste_ Garrick’s fear on the tip of his tongue, could feel a surge from the speed force as the man relinquished his hold on their shared power…

Then he took off into night, feeling more powerful than he ever had before.

~***~

Harrison was not at all amused.

He woke Henry up by tossing a newspaper onto his chest, then just stood there and glared down at him as he gradually returned to the world of the waking. Henry had seen him frustrated many times before, but there was a fire in the man’s eyes this morning that brought Henry an odd sort of joy.

So he laughed.

“You think this is funny?” Harrison seethed, voice dangerous and low.

“No, I just find we’re more productive on the days that you’re pissed.”

Harrison closed his eyes, visibly pained by Henry’s nonchalance. “Do you have _any_ idea what you’ve just done?”

“No,” he replied, sobering up somewhat. He was still riding his high from last night. It was as though Jay Garrick was afraid to so much as _touch_ the speed force since their encounter.

Harrison didn’t say anything else. Just stormed off to his work bench in the middle of the room, leaving Henry to his peace as he sat up and read the headline:

_Flash felled by Speed Demon—ZOOM!_

“…Zoom?” Henry breathed.

“Stupid, isn’t it?”

“I guess.”

Harrison slammed something metallic down hard on his desk, startling Henry. He kept his voice level though, going for passive aggressive as he said, “I was referring to the article. It says you _‘attacked’_ him, but you and I both know you’re smarter than that, don’t we?”

“It was an accident,” Henry replied, rising to his feet. He paused to stretch out his back, gently prodding his broken ribs. As expected, he felt nothing at all. The same went for his wrist. “I just wanted to watch him work. I didn’t think he was going to come to a full stop in the middle of a busy avenue.”

“You shouldn’t have been following him in the first place,” Harrison muttered. “It’s a wonder you didn’t hit anyone else. You could’ve killed someone.”

“But I didn’t. And I won’t. This won’t happen again.”

Harrison stared at him, unblinking, as though searching his face for the truth. After a beat, he finally look down at his work bench, catching sight of the suit—

Brows furrowed, Harrison reached out to pick it up, examining the small cuts here and there from when Henry skidded across the concrete road. “I was beginning to think this was indestructible…”

Feeling somewhat guilty, Henry walked up to the man and took the suit from him. “I’ll sew it up if I have to.” At the incredulous look from Harrison, he said, “You know, I _was_ a surgeon once.”

“Don’t bother, there’s plenty more where this came from,” Harrison sighed, removing his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose. “Older models. Still black, mind you, but there’s barely any mouth on the mask. Not the best design for fitting a respirator.”

For a moment there Henry thought that was the end of their argument, but then Harrison fixed him with another cold, hard stare and said, “Promise me that you will _never_ go after the Flash again. Now that he knows you exist, I don’t know what he’s going to do…”

“He won’t have any reason to come looking for me,” Henry assured him, “because he’s _never_ going to see me again. You have my word.”

“I wish your word was enough,” Harrison said tetchily, “but all we can do is wait and see. Now, take this—” He leaned over and snatched some sort of tool off the desk, handing it off to Henry, “—because today we need to make a few adjustments to the treadmill. I don’t know if it can handle Mach 2 in its current state.”

Henry grinned, flipping what looked a hell of a lot like a monkey wrench over in his hand.

“Just tell me what you want me to do.”

~***~

Well, what Harrison wanted him to do was never leave the basement again, but Henry learned very early on that that wasn’t going to be possible.

The surge of energy he gained from defeating the Flash only lasted a short while before he felt that familiar tug again. Crime in Central City had picked up in the last little while and Jay Garrick was needed, so the other man tentatively dipped his toes back into the waters and started drawing the speed force’s attention away from Henry.

 _“Seven hundred and twenty four miles per hour,”_ came Harrison’s voice from his com link. _“That’s barely enough to break the sound barrier. What’s going on?”_

“Nothing,” he growled, gradually slowing his pace.

_“You were up to one thousand and sixty five this morning. Do you need a break?”_

“No.” He said.

 _‘Yes,’_ He thought.

Irritated, he stopped altogether. He was breathing heavily. His heart was hammering against his chest.

Vision swimming, he stumbled out of the treadmill and collapsed to the floor.

The last thing he remembered was Harrison turning him over onto his back.

Then absolutely nothing.

~***~

When he came to, he was hooked up to god knows how many IV bags. Harrison Wells was also hovering over him, a disapproving look on his face.

“For a physician, you sure know crap all about taking care of your body…”

“Shut up.”

“When was the last time you ate?”

Oh god. When _was_ that?

Tuesday maybe?

“Yesterday,” he muttered.

“You’re lying.” Harrison sighed. “And I find that disconcerting.”

He didn’t want to have this conversation right now. His head was pounding. He could still barely see straight.

He needed to vomit.

Leaning over the opposite side of his cot, he did just that.

Harrison didn’t bat so much as an eyelash as he continued his interrogation. “Please tell me you haven’t _just_ been feeding off whatever the hell it is that fuels your powers?”

Once his stomach settled, he sat up and said, “How badly do you want me to lie to you again?”

“You’re fucking incredible...”

“I’m sorry.”

“Somehow, I doubt that.”

Harrison moved as though to turn away, but Henry reached out to grab his arm.

Gently, of course, but Harrison still flinched.

Henry didn’t know what to make of that.

“…For thirteen years, I rotted away in a prison cell.” Thinking about prison still gave him nightmares on occasion, but knowing that nothing could ever contain him like that again gave him some small measure of comfort. “When you’re trapped like that, sometimes you forgot how to live. Sometimes you don’t even _care_ enough to live anymore. I tend to fall into that frame of mind from time to time. I truly am sorry.”

Harrison’s tight-lipped expression didn’t waver. He did, however, relax under Henry’s touch.

“Just remember,” the scientist murmured, “you can’t save them if you’re dead.”

“You’re right,” he conceded. “I know I can’t.”

But he probably could if Jay Garrick was.

~***~

He tried to keep his word.

He really did.

For a solid week, he couldn’t even break the sound barrier. He was short tempered and terse all the time. He argued with Harrison almost daily about the most inconsequential things.

He was beginning to go stir crazy.

Then one night, he left.

Just for a run, mind you, and a little fresh air. It was dark outside, and quiet, and he had almost forgotten how beautiful the stars were on a clear night like tonight, so he wandered off to one of riverside parks and stood by the guard rail overlooking the water, just staring up at the sky.

He wasn’t expecting the Flash to find him there. Hadn’t even realized the man was standing behind him until he felt the speed force receding, reaching out for his enemy…

Enraged, he pulled it back to him. Reversed the flow. Let it reverberate in his throat to distort his voice, lightning licking at his torso.

He turned, ever so slowly, to face the Flash.

He could _feel_ the man’s terror steadily gaining momentum.

“Tell me who you are,” Garrick demanded.

After a moment of thought, Henry growled, _“Who I am is of no concern to you,”_

“Then what the hell is it you want?”

Henry darted forward then, stopping barely an arm’s length away. He could almost hear the man’s heart beating frantically beneath his breast. _“What I **want** is everything…”_

The Flash struck first.

Henry was surprised, because he almost expected the man to run, but instead he swung his fist toward Henry’s chin like the fool both Henry and Harrison figured him to be. Henry himself didn’t have much experience with hand to hand combat, but at least he was faster. His raised his arm in time to deflect the blow with his wrist, then followed up with his other arm, punching Jay Garrick square in the throat.

The man choked and stumbled back a step. He recovered quickly though, crouching somewhat before dashing forward again, fist connecting with Henry’s gut.

It knocked the breath out of him, but as his vision swam and he struggled to breathe, he dipped back into the soothing waters of the speed force and let it fuel his rage. For a moment, he didn’t _need_ to breathe, just _feel_ , channeling his powers into a second hit aimed directly under the Flash’s chin, one that lifted him clear up and off his feet.

Garrick fell back onto the ground, spitting up blood. Henry only afforded him a second for the pain to register before he crouched over him, tapping into the speed force again as he grabbed him by the shirt, lifted him up into the air, and tossed him deftly over his shoulder.

The Flash travelled farther than he anticipated. He hit the guard rail with a sickening _crack_ and then flipped over onto the other side.

There was a dreadful moment of silence before Henry heard a _splash_.

Heart in his throat, he raced over to the railing and stared down at the swirling black waters. He couldn’t see Garrick.

He couldn’t see the man anywhere.

~***~

Despite what the authorities thought of him, he wasn’t a murderer.

That’s what he tried to tell himself anyway.

His emotions wavered rapidly between anger and guilt. As much as it joyed him to instill the fear of god in Garrick, he never had any intention of killing the man. In any case, it was entirely Garrick’s fault for attacking him.

In _no way_ was this Henry’s fault.

Even so, he spent the rest of the night pacing back and forth in the basement of S.T.A.R. Labs, completely losing track of time until he heard Harrison walking down the stairwell at the end of the room. The door burst open, Harrison strolled in, and then he looked at Henry and said, “Good morning.”

The man had a newspaper tucked under one arm and a cup of coffee in either hand. He set the coffee down on his work bench before handing the paper over to him.

Terrified, Henry stared at the headline:

 _Authorities fish Flash out of Missouri River_!

 _‘Oh god,’_ he thought. But then he read a little further…

It took every ounce of his self-control not to sigh in relief.

“I wonder what hit him,” Harrison mused aloud, and for one horrifying moment he wondered if the man _knew_. But then Harrison turned to him, sipped a little of his coffee, and said, “He broke his femur. You have no idea how much halothane it took to knock him out for his surgery.”

According to the news article, the Flash wouldn’t stop screaming long enough for anyone to get a statement.

Henry felt oddly relieved. Of course, he had no doubt in his mind that Garrick would eventually tell someone who attacked him, but for now Harrison was in a good mood and Henry was going to enjoy it while he still could. After all, the man was the best company he’d had in…well, years.

“That much, huh?” Henry said faintly.

“Just enough to fry his liver. Oddly enough, I’ve been commissioned to develop an anesthetic for him.”

“That’s…fascinating.”

“Oh, it’s _more_ than just that.” Harrison took another sip of coffee. “I don’t think you understand the relevance of this conversation quite yet...”

Henry thought about it for a moment. He began squinting, an old habit of his eyes, staring at Harrison as though he could find a clue in his expression…

Then it dawned on him.

“Theoretically, how _long_ would this anesthetic keep him under?”

“I won’t know until I have the opportunity to test it, but even if it only worked for, say, fifteen minutes, that would still give you more than enough time to get up to Mach 2 and maintain that speed.”

That…

That would be amazing.

Guilt turned his stomach though, made it hard for him return Harrison’s smile before the man sat down in front of his laptop.

“Now, Mr. Allen...are you ready to run?”

Henry nodded. Then pulled up his hood and stepped onto the treadmill.

He didn’t even have to coax the speed force into action today, it was so desperate for release. It always felt different this way than when the Flash was simply healing after a battle with another metahuman, as though being defeated by Zoom brought Henry back to the speed force’s full attention.

Suddenly, he was its favourite son again.

Henry could never hope to understand how exactly his powers functioned. Could only be grateful that it lit the fire in his blood, set him soaring up above himself, as though he was no longer chained to his physical form.

It made him somehow more than human.

~***~

He almost made it to Mach 2 by the end of the week.

He didn’t have the heart to tell Harrison how.

~***~

Harrison found out anyway.

Henry was just returning from an evening run when he almost collided with the man in the stairwell, heading in the opposite direction. Startled, Harrison began to fall backward, but Henry reached out immediately and pulled him upright with a hearty tug to the front of his black sweater.

Harrison batted his hand away, expression livid.

Henry blinked. “What’s wrong?”

“You _know_ what’s wrong.”

“Enlighten me.”

Harrison moved as though to step around him. “ _No_. I refuse to argue with you in the goddamn stairwell—”

 _‘Fine,’_ Henry thought, curling an arm around Harrison’s waist before racing the two of them down to the lab. He deposited the man on the floor beside his cot.

Sure enough, Harrison was disorientated by the sudden change in scenery. He sat down heavily, then slapped away the hand Henry tried to clamp down on his shoulder. “ _Don’t_ touch me.”

Henry figured there was no point playing dumb anymore. Taking a small step back, he crossed his arms and said, “I wasn’t trying to kill him.”

“I wish I could believe you,” Harrison replied, voice low, filled with venom. They’d had their fair share of tiffs before, but Henry recognized this as the true face of loathing. “Tell me, Henry, are you _sure_ you’re not a murderer?”

Before Henry was consciously aware of what he was doing, he slapped Harrison hard across the face.

Maybe a little too hard.

He knocked Harrison’s spectacles off. He also somehow managed to bust the man’s lower lip. And Harrison just sat there, head turned, too stunned to believe what had just occurred…

Eventually, Harrison winced in pain, raising his hand to touch the corner of his jaw gingerly before slowly rising to his feet. He took his spectacles back from Henry when the speedster offered them to him and then calmly put them on again, though he wouldn’t look Henry in the eye anymore, choosing instead to stare down and away.

“...I shouldn’t have said what I did,” Harrison said quietly, “but you had no right to hit me. You have no right to hit anyone, really…”

Henry would say he was sorry, but he already knew it was too late for that.

When it became clear to Harrison that Henry had no intention of speaking, he continued. “You know what bothers me the _most_ about this whole ordeal? Mr. Garrick never informed the papers of who attacked him. Only me. He dropped by to harp on me some more about the particle accelerator and then asked for a sample of my sedative. I never would’ve known about your encounter if he hadn’t told me.”

“You know why I didn’t want to tell you.”

“Yes, because I would’ve been pissed. But that’s my default setting upstairs, actually. Just ask my employees.”

“Then what?”

“ _Honestly_? I have no fucking clue. But I’m not blind to your suffering Henry. I know this ‘ _speed force’_ has some sort of sway over you. We’re so close to the finish line though, it’s almost maddening…”

Henry shifted his weight uneasily between his feet. “And now?”

“And now?” Harrison echoed. “I’ve long since learned that if your associates can’t trust you with everything, then you can’t trust them with anything at all. The same applies to you.”

Harrison took a small step forward. Then stopped, as though waiting for Henry to make his move.

Henry remained perfectly still.

“I think you need to get a handle on your temper, Henry.” Harrison continued forward then, heading for the stairwell. “Come talk to me when you’re interested in being more of a man than a monster again.”

And with that, Harrison left him alone to his peace.

And his nightmares and his demons and the dream of ever seeing his family again…

~***~

He and Harrison Wells didn’t speak to one another again for a very long time.

Henry didn’t need to be told to leave S.T.A.R. Labs. He took his suit and left, drifting from place to place as the months flew by. He stayed mostly in Keystone City though because that was the Flash’s favourite haunt.

Made it easier to torment him.

Henry continued to run. Continued to chase him. Sometimes, when he ran fast enough, it felt as though he was gliding through a stream of light. He felt warm. He felt serene. He could hear Barry’s laughter ringing in his ears.

Then he would feel that _tug_ again and be put back into his place. Depression would hit him then like a brick wall as he remembered that his little boy was dead.

His hatred for the Flash was most vivid then, so he would seek him out in the city streets, and toy with him, and beat him, and try everything in his power to put the man out of his misery.

But somehow Jay Garrick always managed to escape.

~***~

For a while, he wondered if he could travel through time without the use of the particle accelerator.

He knew better than to bother Harrison though, so he hunted down another physicist at Central City College, a Dr. Joseph West, someone Harrison had mentioned in passing once while trying to explain what a wormhole was.

Dr. West, understandably, was almost too afraid to talk, so Henry stood on the far side of the room as he posed his questions to the man.The professor explained it to him as best he could—that theoretically, _yes_ , Henry could travel through time just by virtue of running alone, but he had no idea how Henry would direct himself to a particular time or place. He might very well wind up a hundred years in the future if he wasn’t careful.

Henry didn’t want to risk it, so he left the quivering man in his office and disappeared off into the night.

As much as he wanted to be able to do this on his own, Harrison was the only one with both the confidence and know-how to pull off Henry’s sojourn into the past. The particle accelerator, therefore, would always be his best bet at success.

Before that though, he still needed to kill Jay Garrick.

~***~

Who was getting harder to catch.

He was faster than the man, that much was clear, but the Flash always had a trick up his sleeve.

It was maddening.

It got to be worse when both the CCPD and KCPD became more involved in his capture. Zoom rarely targeted individual people as bait, but he would often attack crowded venues, which never failed to lure the Flash out into the open. One night in particular though, Garrick took off midway through battle, so Henry darted after him, foolishly following him into an abandoned warehouse by the docks.

Dark as it was, he didn’t see the trip wire. Nor did he see the netting until he was hoisted up into the air, tangled in some sort of material that wouldn’t burn no matter how furiously he vibrated against it.

After a moment, he realized it was made out of the same tripolymer fabric as his suit.

“Can’t run if you can’t touch the ground,” Garrick quipped, sounding more confident in himself than usual.

The police filed into the building then, armed to the teeth, rifles pointed up at Henry.

Henry vibrated a little harder then.

The wooden beams of the warehouse began to groan and shudder.

One of the officers managed to fire off a shot before a beam snapped and a corner of Zoom’s net gave way. It afforded him enough room to squirm out on the floor before he pulled out the dart in his thigh and dashed out of the building.

The other beams gave way just then, the Flash occupied with removing the officers one by one as Henry made his escape.

He paused though when he ran around toward the back of the building, where the cops had parked their cruisers and a transfer van, obviously confident that they would catch him tonight. A mob of other officers was also gathered there, not as heavily armed as the ones trapped inside, but still carrying their standard issued guns.

Harrison was there too.

While Zoom felt sluggish from whatever drug had been administered to him through the dart, he was still fast enough to catch the bullets that immediately came flying his way. He was also fast enough to knock Captain Singh flat on his back before strolling up to Harrison, who didn’t budge so much as an inch, knowing full well that there was no escape.

However, the fear in his eyes was unmistakable.

Henry knew how he must look to the man. He’d cut slits in the mouth of his suit and modified the fingers of his gloves into claws. And as connected as he was to the speed force now, he also knew his eyes were small and black and beady. Soulless almost…

All consuming.

He felt like an animal and he accepted that, leaning in so close to Harrison that he could feel his old friend’s breath against his mask.

 _“Did you miss me?”_ Zoom whispered, low enough that only they could hear.

Thin-lipped as ever, Harrison chose not to say anything.

So Zoom snaked an arm around his waist and dragged him off to S.T.A.R. Labs, down into the condemned basement before dropping the man unceremoniously on the floor.

Harrison had emptied the place out since his last visit. The workbench and cot were gone, as was most of his other equipment, but the treadmill remained situated at the far end of the room, probably because it was too large and cumbersome for Harrison to bother moving anywhere else.

_“That was your sedative tonight, was it not?”_

Slowly, Harrison rose to his feet, keeping his eyes focused on Zoom, as though he thought watching him would honestly help. “Yes. It was.”

Curious, Zoom tilted his head to one side. _“Does it work on **him**?”_

Harrison said nothing.

Zoom knew how stubborn the man could be. He also knew that there was no information Harrison could keep from him that Zoom couldn’t get from anywhere else, possibly even someone with loose lips at the CCPD, so he grabbed Harrison by the throat and yanked him closer, voice a deep rumble as he said, _“I’ll take that as a yes.”_

Then he threw the man to the ground again, curling and uncurling his hands into fists at his sides, because he was going to teach Harrison a lesson for interfering in Zoom’s business and he was going to make sure the man remembered it for a _very_ long time...

~***~

As a doctor, he knew how to hurt a man without killing him. It afforded him the opportunity to be creative in his torture methods, to bend and break his victims in such a way that they could still be put back together again.

Even so, he goes a little easier on Harrison than has on others before. For old times’ sake. Roughs him up just enough that the man ends the night lying curled up on his side on the ground, gasping for breath.

When Zoom finally had his fill of his screams, he removed his hood and crouched down beside him, smiling a little as he often would before.

“How’s this, Harry? Am I _man_ enough for you now..?”

Harrison spat up a little blood. Zoom only hit him once in the head, leaving a nasty cut at the corner of his right brow, so he figured the man must have bitten his tongue at some point during the night.

Sighing, Henry reached forward to inspect the cut. “I could stitch that up for you, if you’d like.”

Predictably, Harrison turned his face away. Voice hoarse, he said, “Don’t touch me.”

“ _Tsk_ ,” Henry admonished. “Don’t worry. I think we’ve had our fill of each other tonight. There’s just one more thing I have to say to you, and then you’re free to go.”

Harrison’s habit of not answering him was starting to get a little on his nerves, but after the amusing noises the man made tonight Henry could understand Harrison’s appeal for silence.

“This thing we started?” Henry flicked his finger between them. “It’s far from over. As soon as the Flash is dead, I’m coming back for you. If you’re smart, you’ll cooperate.”

“Go to hell,” Harrison hissed between bloody teeth.

Henry pulled his mask back on and straightened to his full height. _“I’ll be seeing you.”_

Harrison shouted something else at him, but it was lost to the wind that trailed far behind him.

Henry laughed and ran and wondered if Jesse Wells was anything at all like her father.

~***~

Despite his best efforts, the Flash continued to evade him for months on end. And for a man who was busy fighting an army of metahumans, that was quite the feat.

Unfortunately, that only meant that Jay Garrick was getting stronger. And sure enough, Zoom gradually began to feel weak again, even after his many triumphs over the Flash.

He was beginning to worry he would never succeed in killing the man.

But that all changed one night when the sky opened up above him, the eye of a hurricane bearing down on Zoom as he loomed over his fallen enemy. He was seconds away from gouging out the man’s liver when he gazed up into the churning madness, a wreath of storm clouds twirling soundlessly around the great unknown.

Zoom was mesmerized by it because it showed to him what he already knew, as vivid as the day it happened: his beautiful wife screaming for help, trapped in a pillar of lightning, and his son standing at the threshold to kitchen, desperate to do anything to help.

It wasn’t until the light shot out toward his son in this vision that he saw _two_ figures in motion, one in yellow and one in red. And it was a glorious sight to behold, because _finally_ he could _see_ them, the murderers, the men that destroyed his family…

Captivated as he was by the scene, he didn’t notice Garrick slipping away until the man’s body was drawn up into the void. Henry panicked and reached out for him, but all too suddenly he was gone.

The wormhole closed.

Central City was quiet.

But Zoom could still feel Garrick—could feel yet another speedster too, whichever one of the two murderers was still alive on the other side. And Zoom would get to him, and he would kill him.

And Henry Allen would finally have his revenge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: …What the hell is this? I don’t even know. It reads like a really awful break up, that’s what…
> 
> As a funny side note: Iris’s father really is a physicist in the comics. I couldn’t help myself. Just had to throw that in there.
> 
> Okay… Now I think I’m ready now for your ire _*ducks under the table*_
> 
>  **Edit:** I _did_ end up continuing this, but instead of making a series of one-shots, I decided to add each new piece as a chapter to this central fic (so as not to clog up the archive, etc.).
> 
>  **Edit 2:** I also ended up writing a supplemental piece to this story called [Keep the watchman's lantern lit](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5335178). It's Harrick (Jay/Harrison) fic though and can be completely ignored without ruining this story.


	2. Tread quietly in the night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Sometimes I don’t know when to leave well enough alone. I still can't help but picture John Wesley Shipp under Zoom's black body suit, so I just had to throw another installation out there before the show revealed more clues as to Zoom's true identity and ultimately proved me wrong... 
> 
> Also, I _really_ enjoy writing pieces about Harrison Wells.
> 
> That is it...That's my secret formula for happiness.
> 
> Enjoy the update, darlings!

_“And then it changed. I wasn't letting him anymore. He was taking, pawing, grabbing. I pushed, I cried out, I squirmed, but like I said it's a shitty game and he didn't feel like playing by the rules anymore.”_

~ Taylor Rhodes, Sixteenth Notes: The Breaking of the Rose-Colored Glasses

~***~

There was a _thing_ living inside of him, one which made him feel like he was the _chosen one_ , that there was a greater purpose to his miserable life and the opportunity for revenge…

Then the sky opened up above him and he gazed into the swirling madness.

And what he _saw_ was the true centre of the universe.

~***~

He didn’t have a name for the enemy yet. Just a feeling. His grip on the speed force was strong enough that he could always reverse the flow, but it still tugged against him, testing his mettle, ever yearning for the man on the other side…

His one consolation was that it seemed as though Garrick had, once and for all, relinquished his own hold on their shared force. Henry could still sense him faintly, making ripples in the water, but the current no longer flowed according to his will. Coward that he was, Garrick had surrendered his powers completely, disappearing seamlessly beneath the surface of the water.

Jay Garrick was no longer the Flash.

That title belonged to _The Other_ now, a young man clad entirely in red, who ran the span of the universe free do to exactly as he pleased. Through the portals that lingered between their two realities, Henry had stolen glimpses of this curious boy and his parallel world, became away of the Central City on the other side of the mirror. It was altered somewhat, but it was still inflicted with the same metaphysical criminal element as his own. _This_ Flash, too, was a hero of the centuries, lauded as paladin of justice

There was, however, no equivalent of _Zoom_.

There was virtually _no_ _one_ to keep this man in check.

~***~

At first, he was incensed.

He wanted to confront this Flash, to determine what part this man ultimately played in the death of his wife and child, but the pull between them was too strong. The first month following his discovery of the smaller portals, he could feel the speed force trying to draw him through to the other side, to _touch_ its new favourite son. Resisting the call was agony, but he wasn’t ready yet to face this _…_

This _child_.

In turn, he became frustrated by his own inadequacies, by his _fear_ —but his own world was quiet now without Jay Garrick to torment him, and for a short while he could think clearly again. He no longer faltered when he ran. He finally had the strength to survive his own personal gauntlet.

He now had enough control over his powers to return home.

But that still required Harrison.

~***~

In the many months that Henry had spent in Harrison’s company, he quickly learned that the scientist was not an idle man.

When it became apparent to the people of Central City that the disappearance of ‘ _The Flash_ ’ was no minor divergence from the usual rhythm of their lives, the metahumans interpreted this as change to the whole world order. For a time, they ruled the streets uncontested, taunting the police and terrorizing civilians, sometimes even fighting amongst themselves.

People truly began to fear for their lives.

Then the National Guard upped their game.

S.T.A.R. Labs outfitted them with a series of weapons that were, for the most part, custom made for each of the metahumans. Harrison Wells, it appeared, had a trick up his sleeve for almost every rogue that crossed his path. He was a true god among men, the one mortal with more power than his seemingly supernatural counterparts.

Harrison was even careful enough not to forget about _him_.

Henry had dialed down on his public appearances since the Flash vanished off the face of the planet, but he continued to analyze the portals that he could find. There was one in particular he had discovered in the park, which blossomed under his gaze to reveal the river docks, and which he contemplated using for his own transport to the other side one night when something landed with a soft _thump_ behind him on the dewy grass.

Then it _clicked_ and set Henry’s whole world on fire.

A thousand tiny needles embedded themselves in his limbs and torso, pressing ever _inward_ as he turned to examine the mysterious box. Three armed men were slowly approaching, rifles leveled at his head, demanding that he surrender.

Henry ran.

That in and of itself was no small feat. The needles continued to burrow into him until he reached his safe house, vibrating harder, and phased directly through the door. By some miracle of god, he left the needles on the other side, which he listened to as they tinkled to the floor behind him. Then he collapsed to his knees, bleeding profusely, crying out in agony…

It had been long time since anyone was able to hurt him like that.

Trust Harrison Wells to be that person.

~***~

In the many months that Henry had spent in Harrison’s close company, Henry _also_ learned that the man was not afraid to take risks.

And every once in a while, he suffered for it.

It was no secret that the founder of S.T.A.R. labs was the man behind the turn in the tide against crime, but his reluctance to flee the city like so many other influential men and women was his downfall. Henry intercepted him walking up the steps to the CCPD’s 52nd precinct, deep in conversation with Captain Singh, before both men stopped dead in their tracks, shocked the by sudden appearance of Central City’s personal demon.

_“Are you a martyr, Harrison Wells?”_

Despite his initial surprise, Harrison made no sign that he intended to run. He simply returned Henry’s unwavering stare, resigned, and said, “I guess that all depends on what you do to me now.”

David Singh drew his gun.

In his periphery, Henry could see other officers turning to confront him.

But already Henry was moving, slipping an arm around Harrison’s waist before darting down the stairs and across the street, nothing more than a streak of light in the bustling city, just a figment of your imagination if you weren’t watching closely.

And like all great men who take necessary risk, Harrison Wells was going to suffer for his arrogance for a very long time…

~***~

“…You’re going to end my life where it all began for us?” Harrison asked, sounding almost blasé. “A bit cliché, don’t you think?”

Henry had whisked the man back to S.T.A.R. Labs. Not to their old haunt in the basement though, but rather the pipeline itself, Harrison’s little cradle of wonders. It periodically underwent repairs and maintenance checks to ensure that everything was up to snap, but back when the two of them were still working together Harrison had kept it completely offline so that he could modify it for their own little experiment. Since their falling out, however, Henry knew the man probably hadn’t set foot in there once.

Henry joined him by the guard rail on the catwalk overlooking the tunnel and pulled back his mask. “I know my promises don’t mean much to you anymore, but I have no intention of killing you.”

“ _If_ I finish the modifications?” Harrison postulated.

Henry shook his head. “There are no conditions for your life, Harrison, but how _comfortably_ you live between now and the completion of the particle accelerator depends entirely on your level of cooperation.”

Scowling, Harrison said, “I’m not helping you anymore.”

“You might not think so now, but you will.” Henry reached out for him then, fingers snaking through the hair above the nape of Harrison’s neck before he found purchase and tilted the man’s head back sharply. Harrison gasped. “ _Everyone_ tends to overestimate their ability to endure pain. If you test me, you’ll soon discover that you’re no different.”

Harrison raised both of his hands in an attempt to pry Henry’s free, but he was just as weak as all the others, struggling in vain as Henry tilted his head farther back to prove his point.

“I don’t want to hurt you anymore than I already have,” Henry confessed, “but I _will_ do everything in my power to ensure you finish what we started. There are things I could do to you that you can’t even _begin_ to imagine…”

It was already obvious to him that Harrison was well and truly terrified, but at the same time Henry saw a fire in the man’s eyes that spoke of contumacy and an unspeakable anger, not too unlike the wrath that fueled Henry’s fevered dreams of freedom and revenge.

It gave Harrison the courage to stare him dead in the eye and say, “Is that what you’ve been up to all this time then, Henry? Familiarizing yourself with the intimate art of torture?”

For some reason, this little spark of rebellion brought a smile to Henry’s lips.

“I have,” he replied. “In fact, you could almost say I’ve had a considerable amount of practice.”

~***~

Harrison didn’t quite understand the significance of that statement until Henry took him then to one of his boltholes by the docks.

Three abandoned warehouses stood side-by-side at the far west end, once belonging to an old fishing company that had gone out of business sometime in the late 1980s. The mafia had used them for a while afterwards as their base of operations and had actually converted the upper offices of the central building into a make-shift prison, reinforcing the doors and nailing bars across the windows, although they too had moved on only a few years later after the police smoked them out. Squatters then inevitably utilized the place as a haven to shoot up and sleep off their highs, but Henry bodily removed them in a single day.

Though it had not yet come to the attention of the CCPD, the warehouses were now referred to as the “ _demon’s den_ ” by the residential homeless.

The one upside to having previous tenants in the warehouses was that some of their furniture had been left in their wake. Even though Henry could spend days at a time suspended in the speed force, free of all mortal needs, slowing down again and returning to the normal pace of life was a draining business, one that required an ungodly amount of sustenance and rest. He was thankful then for the small refrigerator that was left in one corner of the largest room and the portable stove beside it, as well as the old tap and emergency chemical shower in the make-shift water closet by the door. Other than that, he had a small twin bed bolted to the floor by the windows overlooking the river, to which Harrison was now connected by the long chain encircling his left ankle.

The old blood caked on to the manacle was not lost on Harrison: “Who was your last house guest?”

“A nutritionist.”

Harrison made a vaguely disgusted look at him and said no more.

Truth be told, Henry was sick of wasting time stealing food and IV bags. He had therefore abducted a tech from a private nutrition lab just on the outskirts of Keystone City and blackmailed her coworkers into formulating a solution to his little problem. What they ended up with was a high-calorie protein bar that tasted even worse than the food served in prison, but which thankfully packed quite the punch. Henry could eat two in a day and not feel the least bit fatigued.

He collected an empty plastic milk jug and filled it with water from the tap in the closet before capping it and tossing it over to Harrison. “It’s potable,” he said. “The chain will stretch to the tap if you need more, but you’re out of range of pretty much everything else, so just lie back, relax, and try not to hurt yourself before I return.”

“Is that all?” Harrison muttered, placing the jug on the ground between his feet before lightly kicking it under the bed with the back of his heel. He frowned when he heard a small _thunk_ , glancing down to discover an empty bucket tucked away under there.

“I trust I don’t have to explain what that is for,” Henry said as he made his way over to the door. “One other thing though—if you attempt to dismantle either the tap or the shower to utilize either of the pipes as a weapon against me, I _will_ beat you with it.”

“Is that what she tried to do?”

Henry paused.

Harrison didn’t necessarily strike him as a psychic, but the casual way in which the man referred to his last prisoner’s gender set Henry on edge.

After a moment, Harrison seemed to catch on to his discomfort. He waved one hand vaguely in the air and said, “She wore an awful lot of Chanel. Did you only just release her?’

Sighing, Henry pulled his hood back on before dipping into the soothing waters of the speed force. _“I’ll be back soon.”_

“I certainly hope not,” was Harrison’s terse response.

Amused, Zoom left him to his peace.

~***~

“P-please… _please_ , let me go.”

Despite his command, the homeless man remained on his knees where Zoom deposited him outside another portal in an alleyway not too far from Central City College. Irritated, Zoom reached down to grab the man by the collar of his ratty old jacket and hauled him to his feet, shoving him toward the portal.

He had realized very early on that whenever he approached _any_ of the portals they almost seemed to stabilize, an open invitation of sorts to whatever madness was lurking on the other side. The pull was sometimes too strong for him to resist though, so much so that he almost feared any attempt he himself made to travel between the two worlds would be a one way trip.

He also wasn’t certain _how_ stable these portals truly were, because the glimpses he stole of the other side were always brief and somewhat blurry. It was a _tease_ almost, something to tempt him to come ever closer…

Predictably, the man shied away from the translucent wave in their reality, a distortion of the air that curled in and around itself like a snake. Looking to Zoom, he asked, “What the h-hell is that?”

 _“Your only means of escape.”_ Zoom reached forward then, the very tips of his clawed glove brushing a ripple in the distortion. The portal shifted then, emitting blue light as a sizeable hole formed at its core, showing an alleyway on the other side not too unlike the one they occupied now.

Mesmerized, the man took a tentative step closer. “What do you want me to do?”

_“Pass through to the other side. If you do, I will not follow you.”_

Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed hard, the man took yet another step closer. The fact that the portal suddenly began to waver in and out of focus, however, gave him pause. “D-do I…do I just step through?”

Reaching the limit of his patience, Zoom pushed him forward.

The man vanished.

Zoom could hear him shouting though, as if from a great distance, until his screams faded altogether and all that was left was a flickering image of the empty alleyway on the other side of the portal.

Disappointed, Zoom relinquished his control over the distortion in reality and turned sharply on his heel.

Begrudgingly, he realized he might eventually need Harrison’s help with this too.

~***~

As expected, Harrison spent the first few days of his imprisonment in silent protest of Henry’s scheme to modify the particle accelerator, but a severe beating set him to rights again. Once Harrison became more malleable to his commands, Henry felt confident enough to afford the man certain freedoms. The daily newspaper, for example, and a razor when Henry was around to watch him shave, just the little things that helped Harrison to realize he should probably get comfortable here considering the amount time they would inevitably be spending together until their work was complete.

During the day, Harrison spent his time alone in the warehouse with his schematics and a stack of his old chicken-scratch notes, formulating the best way to build a fuel cell that wouldn’t short circuit halfway through their experiment the way the last one did the day S.T.A.R. Labs first turned the particle accelerator on. Henry spent that time searching for new portals and determining the natural stability of each. He couldn’t be certain, but it almost seemed to him as though the urge to step through himself was stronger when the other Flash was in the vicinity.

He sometimes wondered if the young man could sense him too.

During the night, Henry supervised Harrison’s work in the service corridors below the pipeline itself, watching as the man built a docking station for his experimental fuel cell from scratch. It was difficult, because he had to turn the power off in that sector without notifying anyone else in the building, and therefore had to do most of the work under the glare of a portable spotlight. But he was diligent and focused and everything Henry admired in a man, the sort of fellow who wasn’t afraid to take destiny into his own two hands. Watching him was therefore never a chore, even if Harrison refused to carry out a conversation with him beyond answering the odd question with a curt _‘yes’_ or _‘no’_.

That changed a bit when someone on the upside decided to flip the switch.

By some miracle, Harrison figured out what was happening long before Henry did, probably tipped off by the subtle buzz in the darkened corridor as he attempted to untangle himself from the wires in the wall panel he was currently working on.

The fluorescent lights above them flickered on just as Henry grabbed the man by his arm, yanking him out of harm’s way before the arc that would’ve sent Harrison to any early grave could occur.

Harrison wound up sitting on the floor by his feet, leaning back against Henry’s left leg as he released the breath he’d been holding. “Jesus Christ…” he gasped.

Henry pulled his hood into place, staring down the gently curving corridor, listening…

Faintly, he could hear footsteps.

Harrison could hear them too. Panicked, he grabbed Henry by his wrist before he could move, staring up at him, wide-eyed and frantic. “Please,” he whispered. “They don’t know we’re down here. There’s no way they could.”

Divided as he was, Henry felt compelled to believe him. Harrison hacked into the facility’s security system every night to ensure that no one saw them coming or going, seeing as the last thing he wanted was for Henry to start offing his security personnel.

Henry sighed, then replaced the wall panel and took the portable spotlight in one hand before grabbing Harrison with the other. He sprinted down the corridor until he reached a small intersection, turning left and pressing the man bodily into a small alcove as he waited to see what their unexpected visitor intended to do.

It was two men actually.

“—t’s not as cold as it should be,” one said as they casually made their way down the corridor, “You’ll see what I mean when we get there.”

“Was anything leaking?”

“Not so far as I could tell.”

Harrison sucked in his breath between his teeth. He knew that if the men turned at the intersection, they would be seen.

But they didn’t.

They went straight on through, unaware of the danger at their backs.

Harrison closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall.

After their voices disappeared in the distance, Henry pulled back his mask again and said, “What leak are they talking about?”

“They’re referring to the liquid helium we use to keep the superconductor cool,” he explained, removing his glasses briefly to rub his eyes. “And it’s _not_ leaking. I know what the real problem is, believe me—it’s on my long list of things to do.”

“If you explained it to me, I’m sure I could help expedite the whole process.”

His offer only managed to make Harrison laugh. “When it comes to the heavy lifting, I will certainly need your help, but this is not something you can learn to fix in a day. Just leave the finer details to me.”

Nodding, Henry slipped his arm around the man again, and in seven seconds flat they were back in Harrison’s make-shift prison, standing together beside the bed.

Irritated, Harrison shoved him away. “Would it kill you to warn me before you do that? You have no idea how much that hurts when you’re not braced for it.”

Given their history together, Henry decided to let the man’s attitude slide. “Would it surprise you to know you’re the only person who’s ever given me any feedback on the matter?”

“I don’t think anyone was aware you were _open_ to their opinion,” the man muttered, taking a seat on the bed as he rubbed the back of his neck. “After all, you cared so little about mine…”

Henry started tugging off his gloves. “You know, with the small exception of my issue with the Flash, you seem to forget that I followed almost all of your other advice to a tee. Who knows, maybe if you hadn’t ignored me for all those months, this could’ve been avoided…”

Harrison was getting better at his death glare. This one genuinely impressed him. “There is _no_ way you can blame this on me.”

“Quite the contrary, Harry, this is _all_ because of you. You’re the one who unleashed all unholy hell upon Central City. Innocent people are suffering now because of your mistake.”

This effectively deflated the man. Harrison leaned forward slightly, elbows braced against his knees, and let his gaze drop to the ground as he retreated back into the safe haven of his mind.

Tired already of arguing with the man, Henry knelt down and reattached the manacle to Harrison’s leg before disappearing out the door and down the hall. There was another bed in the adjacent room where he often rested when he felt the need, although sleep didn’t come easily to him that night.

Instead, he spent a long time staring up at the starry sky through the window above the bed, remembering what he could of Barry and Nora.

~***~

Harrison continued his work on the pipeline.

And Henry continued his side experiments with the portals. He found a grand total of five so far dotted across the twin cities. With practice, he was also able to stabilize them for longer periods of time.

He still wasn’t successful in sending anyone over yet.

“Please—I have a daughter,” his latest guinea pig whimpered. Like all the others, she was dressed in rags and covered in filth, hardly the sort of person anyone would miss.

Not at _all_ the kind of woman Henry would assume was a responsible mother…

_“I imagine she’ll be better off without you then.”_

The woman burst into tears, collapsing to her knees as Henry curled his hand around her wrist and tossed her into the portal.

Just like all the others, she disappeared into the hidden void, screaming until she faded from existence altogether.

Frustrated, Henry closed the portal and wandered off to find another victim.

~***~

Harrison finished his first ‘wave’ of repairs on the pipeline itself in a little over two months. Phase two of his little plan involved putting together the fuel cell, which, he informed Henry, would require a long list of chemicals and equipment currently housed at Mercury Labs.

“Is this fuel cell something you can put together here?” Henry asked. They’d had two other close calls in the pipeline already and he was tired of scampering away like a rat.

Harrison, who was sitting on the bed with his legs crossed, glanced down at the rotting hardwood floor and then up at the graffitied walls and said, “I’ll be working with volatile chemicals, so I guess that all depends on how fond you’ve grown of this place.”

Henry grinned.

Appropriately, Harrison scowled. “I’m sorry—do I _amuse_ you?”

“Always,” he said, and then he was off, wondering somewhat belatedly if any of the aforementioned ‘volatile chemicals’ needed to be handled with care.

~***~

Once he had everything in hand, he set everything up in the _one_ place he knew would serve Harrison’s needs beautifully.

The somewhat annoyed look on Harrison’s face led him to believe the man thought otherwise, and was only confirmed by the dull tone of Harrison’s voice as he said, “I’m _so_ happy you chose this location…”

“We already know it can withstand an explosion.” Henry supplied, patting the outer wall of his old treadmill fondly. “And there’s no surveillance down here, so, really, why not?”

“What about an abandoned subway station?” Harrison muttered under his breath, followed by something else that was lost to Henry as the man wandered around to the far side of the treadmill and disappeared from sight.

Curious, Henry took up after the man in the blink of an eye, skidding to a halt beside him when he finally saw what it was that had caught Harrison’s attention.

It was another portal. Larger than any of the others, but it was still just a writhing mass of energy, at first translucent, but slowly turning blue as Henry took a step closer.

“Fascinating.” Harrison said.

Surprised, Henry turned back to stare at him. “You’re not afraid?”

“Should I be?” the scientist gave him a quick once-over before returning his gaze to the portal. “ _You’re_ obviously not afraid. Besides, it’s reacting to you, so I’m going to hazard a guess and assume you already know what this is…?”

Henry supposed that this conversation was a long time coming, so he closed the distance between himself and the portal and gently grazed it with his fingertips. It reacted marvelously in comparison to the others, opening faster and wider than any of the others had before.

Briefly, they caught a glimpse of another room on the other side, however all that Henry could really make out was a set of elevator doors before the portal flickered shut again.

Mystified, Harrison took a step closer, stopping only when Henry put a hand on his chest. “ _That_ was what this room almost looked like prior to the explosion. Is that a parallel world? Have you gone through to the other side yet?”

“I haven’t tried,” he admittedly quietly.

“But you’ve thought about it,” Harrison surmised, an odd sort of light in his eyes, the kind he used to get when he was excited about something and _not_ phenomenally pissed off at Henry.

Henry hadn’t realized until now how much he'd missed that about his old friend.

“You must have encountered other portals,” Harrison continued, piecing together the facts faster than he anticipated. “Tell me everything.”

At first, Henry felt like telling him no, to just to walk away and get on with his work already, but this was the first time Harrison had been this relaxed around him since their falling-out and Henry wasn’t exactly opposed to having a brief reprieve from their usual squabbling…

Sighing, he said, “Brace yourself,” and then whisked them away to the warehouse.

~***~

In the end, he told Harrison everything the man wanted to know.

—with the exception, of course, of the homeless people, but even then he let a bit of the truth slip through…

“Is that what you’ve been up to during the day?” Harrison inquired, before taking up another spoonful of soup. They were seated together at the little table Henry had added to the room, Harrison with the sleeves of his black sweatshirt rolled up to his elbows. It was then that Henry realized how much weight the man had lost in their time together; his shirt hung a little looser on him than normal. “You’ve been playing with the portals?”

“Yes,” he replied. “I’ve tried tossing things through them, but they disappear into a void. I’m beginning to think that these aren’t real portals after all...”

“But they stabilize when you touch them,” Harrison pointed out, “which means that you might have to chaperone whatever it is you want to carry over to the other side. Have you at least tried putting your arm through one of them yet?”

Henry shook his head. “No, because it feels as though the portals are _trying_ to suck me in. I honestly believe that if I go that far, it might be a one-way trip.” At the small smirk Harrison attempted to hide behind another spoonful of soup, Henry added, “You’d like that though, wouldn’t you?”

“What I want matters little at the moment. You’re consumed with these portals for some bizarre reason and you’re not telling me why.”

“I _will_ tell you why, but right now I think it’s more important to talk about what _you_ want, Harrison.”  He leaned forward then, bracing his arms against the table top with his elbows. “I know I’ve been your gaoler for these past few months, but I think you’ve clued into the fact that I still want to be your friend. At least, I _hope_ you have…”

Gently, Harrison put his spoon down beside his bowl of soup. “I noticed that you’ve haven’t made any threats against my daughter yet. Manhandling aside, I’m assuming that this is your way of showing me you’re interested in maintaining a good relationship between us. At least, more so than I am…”

“And why aren’t you?”

“Because you killed Jay Garrick.”

 Slowly, Henry began to smile. “No. I didn’t.”

Harrison blinked. Then he tilted his head to one side a little quizzically and said, “But he’s still dead, isn’t he? What the hell happened to his body?”

“He’s alive actually, he’s just not tapping into his powers anymore,” Henry clarified. “He was sucked up into that… _thing_. I don’t know what to call it.”

“A singularity.” Harrison supplied.

“Yes, that—what is a singularity?”

“ _That_ ,” Harrison said, voice low, colour steadily draining from his face, “is what happens when you try to open a wormhole and you _fail_.”

Henry felt his whole body tense.

“You asked me what I wanted,” Harrison continued. “Well, this is it: _stop_. Just…all of it. If we try to open a wormhole like those morons obviously did on the other side, we might kill everyone in our two worlds.”

“I can’t,” Henry replied. “And those so-called ‘ _morons’_ are still alive, so you can’t just assume this won’t work.”

“They tore not _one_ , but _several_ holes between our realities. I don’t know what you were taught in high school physics, but our universe isn’t exactly in the most stable condition right now.”

“Then I’ll find out what they did wrong,” Henry argued. “I’ll make the journey over there and figure out how they managed to travel back in time.”

Harrison gave him a weird look. “You have no idea why they created that wormhole in the first place. They could’ve been trying to get _here_ for all we know.”

“No. When the singularity first appeared I _saw_ what happened. Someone went back to the night Barry and Nora were murdered. They were _there_ , the murderers, they—”

Suddenly feeling overwhelmed, Henry stood up abruptly from the table. He closed his eyes and ran his hand through his hair. He could still picture the two of them—Nora, trapped in that pillar of light, and little Barry screaming for help. They were so frightened. Both of them. And he _still_ didn’t know what those savages did to his little boy or his body…

The images his mind conjured up for him were almost enough to make him scream.

Softly, Harrison said, “Murderers?”

Henry took a deep breath. Then another. Then he opened his eyes and said, “Yes…there were two of them, both as fast as I am today. When I gaze through the portals now, I can sense that one of them is still alive. In their world, _he’s_ known as the Flash.”

“And you feel compelled to pass through the portal…because of him?”

“The speed force is drawn to him, is _drawing_ me to him…”

“Given what you’ve told me about the power balance that existed between you and Garrick, it could be that this speed force requires at least two vessels at all times,” Harrison supplied. He no longer seemed interested in arguing, so Henry took up his seat again. “The death of this other speedster and Garrick’s imminent defeat must be the reason why the rift exists between our two worlds. I would therefore have to caution you against going after him.”

Henry shook his head. “You know, he’s lauded as a hero in that world…Killed a little boy over fifteen years ago, but I don’t think anyone knows that besides me. He thwarts robberies and builds bridges and parades around his city like God’s gift to mankind now.” He eyes stung. He knew he was going to cry. “It makes me _sick_ …”

Harrison took off his glasses to rub at the bridge of his nose. Quietly, he asked, “Did you see what they did to your boy?”

“…No.”

“Then do you think, perhaps, that this man who’s been running around saving people in his city _might have_ been there that night in an attempt to save your family?”

Henry shook his head again, “No. I saw _both_ him and the other murderer in my own home that night, corralling my wife and darting after my son. My family is still very much dead.”

“I see…” Harrison replaced his glasses. “I’m not going to pretend I understand what happened to you, but I’m still going to ask that you tread carefully here, Henry. You don’t know what will happen if you meddle in the affairs of another world.”

“You just worry about the particle accelerator.” He wiped his tears away with the back of his hand, somewhat humiliated by his moment of weakness. He hadn’t cried in years. “I’ll deal with the Flash as I see fit.”

Clearly agitated, Harrison sighed. “Fine, whatever, it’s not as if I can stop you anyway…I do have one last question for you though.”

Exhausted, Henry waved his hand vaguely in assent.

“What is Garrick up to now? Has he made any attempt to return to our world?”

“Not to my knowledge,” he admitted. “I only saw him at a distance once. I don’t even know if he’s aware of the portals.”

“Hm,” Harrison hummed, as though that was truly food for thought.

For some reason, Henry didn’t have the heart to tell him that their city’s homegrown hero, though still connected to the speed force, had not yet made any attempt to utilize his powers since passing over, that he had somehow shut himself out completely, afraid…

Like a true coward.

~***~

Harrison started two fires in his first week back in their old lab.

Unintentionally, of course.

Thankfully, Harrison had specified on his list that he was going to need _‘6-7 fire extinguishers’_ ,one of which he was utilizing now to put out the small fire on his bench. Amused, Henry watched him from his chair on the other side of the room as he flipped through yesterday’s paper.

“If you can manage not to set anything else on fire tonight, Harrison, I’ll get you ice cream on the way home.”

“Shut up,” the man muttered, eyeing the mess he now had to clean up.

“…Do you want a hand?”

Harrison said nothing, choosing instead to glare at him and continue his work.

Henry shrugged and returned to his paper.

From what he could tell, order was slowly returning to Central City. The metahumans were gradually creeping out of the spotlight again, realizing that the police were now better equipped to dealing with them thanks to Harrison Well’s intervention, but _The Citizen_ was still bemoaning the scientist’s disappearance. The popular theory was that he had been killed the day of his abduction, although his daughter had been quoted as saying she didn’t believe he was dead—that she _couldn’t_ believe he was dead until they found his body…

Henry understood all too well what she was going through right now, but unlike the mystery surrounding his son’s death, she wouldn’t have to worry about her father’s well-being for much longer.

Once Harrison was finished his work here, Henry had every intention of letting him go.

~***~

Henry continued to obsess over the portals.

Eventually, he mustered the courage to step through one of them himself. It was the latest vision of the parallel Central City that prompted him really, the preparation of some sort of celebration, with red and yellow balloons hung everywhere, and a golden lightning bolt logo plastered on everything in sight…

Incensed, Henry barreled through the portal—

—and landed gently on the other side.

At first, the sensation of passing over was electrifying. He almost felt _stronger_ for moving himself closer to the Flash of this reality, but at the same time he could almost feel his grasp on his own world slipping, his influence on the portal wavering, weakening by the second.

So he ran back through before it was too late, feeling all the world as though something was pulling him _back_ , dragging him down, trying to prevent him from returning to the place where he belonged.

Somehow, he made it through in one piece. He collapsed to the ground in the alleyway, gasping for breath in broad daylight, wondering for a moment if he had maybe just triggered the end of the world…

A quick glance at the portal though revealed to him that it was closed again. The earth didn't tremble; the sky didn't open up above him.

Life went on as usual.

It was evident then that Henry Allen was free to come and go as he pleased.

~***~

Harrison worked like a madman.

There was a growing stack of papers on the floor beside the table, loaded with diagrams and calculations that the man was constantly working on in his waking hours. Occasionally though, he would burn himself out, lost in thought, as he was now, just staring at a small list of numbers…

Hoping to bring him out of daze, Henry sat down across from him at the table and said, jokingly, “Do you need a calculator?”

If looks could kill…

After giving Henry the sort of glare that would probably make anyone other than Henry horribly uncomfortable, Harrison returned his attention to his little notepad and continued working through the numbers. “I can’t afford to screw this up.”

“You’re not going to.”

“You don’t know that.” Harrison looked up at him again sharply. “On the other side of that portal I saw S.T.A.R. Labs, the facility _I_ founded with my late wife. Now I can’t help but wonder if my counterpart wasn’t somehow responsible for the singularity…”

Henry glanced down at the notepad, at the scribbles that made sense to nobody but the brilliant Harrison Wells. “Then don’t rush this.”

“What choice do I have?” the man snapped. “Either I finish this soon, or you pop off to the other dimension and start harassing innocent people.”

“We don’t know that he’s innocent.”

“I gave you the benefit of the doubt once, didn’t I?”

Cautiously, Henry nodded. Then, ever so slowly, he took the notebook from Harrison’s grasp and folded it shut.

As Harrison stared at him in confusion, he said, “If I promise to leave the portals alone for the time being, will you calm down?”

Harrison’s eyes flickered between Henry and his book. Eventually, he put his pencil down on the tabletop, a small sign of surrender. “I _am_ calm.”

“You’re possessed.”

“No, I’m just conflicted.”

Idly, Henry flipped through the pages in Harrison’s notepad. He couldn’t understand half of what was written there. “Conflicted about what?”

“You,” Harrison said, as though pained. “I know you were a good man once, and there’s a part of me that still wants to believe that, despite all the hell you’ve put me through.”

Part of Henry warmed at the thought that Harrison still had a little faith in him. “What’s stopping you then?”

“Your secret.”

“What secret?”

Harrison very nearly rolled his eyes. “You know, I have teenager. I can tell when someone is trying to bullshit me.”

For a second there, fear welled up inside of Henry as he remembered all the homeless people he’d been sacrificing to the void. He’d forgotten how observant Harrison was—or how well the man could bluff.

Henry’s mind rebelled at the thought that a mere mortal could outwit him, but this was Harrison, after all, the smartest man alive, and the only person who knew the real Henry Allen. So he sighed and said, “I can go through the portals.”

Harrison stared at him for a long moment, absorbing that little factoid. “And did you go after him while you were there, this other Flash?”

“No…I was only there for a couple of seconds. I don’t think I can stay for very long.”

Harrison nodded slowly, slotting that information away for a rainy day. “Given what you’ve just told me, do you still intend to keep your promise?”

“Yes,” Henry said, definitively.

And he meant it.

The tension visibly eased from Harrison’s shoulders as he ran a hand through his unruly hair and slumped back somewhat in his chair. “Thank you…now, can I have my notebook back?”

“No,” Henry replied, closing it again. “Whatever you’re working on, I think it can wait until tomorrow. Go lie down.”

Surprisingly, Harrison didn’t try to argue with him. He simply got up out of his chair and did just that.

Henry continued to sit at the table in quiet contemplation until the sun finally rose outside the window and Harrison drifted off to sleep.

Then he retired to his own room and stretched out on his bed, resisting the urge to steal another glance at the world on the other side of the rift…

~***~

Harrison finished the fuel cell in just under a week.

A quick check of the pipeline also revealed that his employees had already fixed his other problems. When everything was said and done, Harrison revealed to him that they were finally ready to make their own attempt at opening a wormhole.

Henry almost couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You mean to tell me we could try it out tonight?”

“Tonight, tomorrow night—whenever you want. Please wait until at least 2am though. I know for a fact that no one will be in the Cortex past then.”

“Tomorrow then,” Henry decided. At Harrison’s curious look, he said, “I didn’t think you would finish it this soon. I need to come up with some sort of plan of action before I’m ready to make the trip.”

“I understand.”

“Which reminds me…” Henry crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall of the service corridor. In the dim light, Harrison looked like a ghost, tired and sad and horribly malnourished. It pained Henry to know that he was responsible for the man’s miserable state right now. “I wanted to ask you about your wife—”

“I know where you’re going with this,” Harrison interjected softly, “and to be honest, I entertained the same idea when we first decided to use the particle accelerator, but I’m going to ask you to leave my past the way it is.”

“Because you still have your daughter?’ Henry asked, confused as to why Harrison would turn down the opportunity of the lifetime.

“In a way, yes… If you made this offer to my Jesse, she’d probably tell you the same thing, that she misses her mother, but that she knows her time with her is up. Losing her was part of the reason why we became the people we are today…”

“You’re quite the mystery, Harrison Wells,” Henry admitted, but he wasn’t going to push. “Shall we then…?”

Harrison was silent for a moment, but eventually he nodded and let Henry whisk him away.

Neither one of them slept much between then and the following night.

~***~

Darkness fell, although they waited until 2am, as per Harrison’s request, before returning to S.T.A.R. Labs. The man made a quick stop in his office, where he apparently still kept his radio for the com link in Henry’s hood, and then made his way down to the Cortex to initiate the collider.

After Henry was sure Harrison was in place, his made his way into the pipeline and then simply stood there, staring at the darkened tunnel stretched out before him as he waited for the signal.

 _“Can you hear me?”_ came Harrison’s tiny voice in his ear.

“Yes,” he said.

_“Everything looks good on my end. Unfortunately, there’s no way I can turn this on without alerting anyone still in the building. Once I flip the switch, you’ll have maybe two minutes before security shuts the power off.”_

“I’m ready.”

 _“Okay then…”_ Suddenly, the main lights flickered on overhead. _“It’s time to run, Henry.”_

And so he ran.

He hit Mach 2 sooner than even he expected. Three seconds flat, he thinks, and he was able to maintain it as he did loop after loop in the pipeline. Eventually, his mind began to drift. Reality began to lose its form around him. In his ears, he could hear Nora and Barry screaming.

Belatedly, he realized he was screaming too.

He hit the floor and rolled god knows how far before he came to a halt. His vision was blurry, his body felt as though it was on fire, and at the back of his head he could still hear his family crying out for help.

He rested there for a moment, waiting for the screaming to die down before climbing to his feet. He tried to run again, but only made it maybe three meters before his powers cut out on him suddenly, pain lancing up his legs and spine. He felt oddly disconnected, as though if he attempted to use his powers again he just might phase through the floor.

“What happened?” he gasped.

 _“I’ve unmade you,”_ Harrison said softly. _“Almost, anyway.”_

“…What?”

_“I’m sorry, Henry, but I can’t let you do this.”_

Seething, Henry tried to run again. He made it another couple meters before he had to stop, vibrating from head to toe for a moment before he could get his body under control. “Why the hell _not_?”

 _“I was aware of what the singularity was the night it opened up over Central City. When I realized Garrick was truly gone, I also that knew it would only be a matter of time before you approached me about the particle accelerator. Opening a wormhole of our own could very well tear this world apart. The singularity was a sign this was never going to work, Henry. Truly, I am sorry…”_  

Henry almost stumbled in his disbelief. “This was a _trap_?”

_“Six months in the making, although I honestly thought I could figure out a way to evade you longer than I initially did. I assumed I would have more time before you took me.”_

Henry tried running once more. This time he made it as far as the door. “You and the police—you played me for a fool…”

 _“No,”_ Harrison said quietly, _“I was going to tell Captain Singh the day you grabbed me, actually. He knows now, of course, because I’ve called the police, but this little affair was only ever between the two of us. It was never my intention to humiliate you.”_

Reaching for the door, Henry almost lost his footing when he staggered completely _through_ it. It took every ounce of his energy just to pull himself together again.

“You’re going to regret this,” Henry growled, before zipping toward the stairwell. He made it up two flights of stairs before he had to take another break. “I’m coming for you, you little _bitch_. When we get out of here, I’m going to make you _scream_ …”

_“You can come up here and grab me if you want, provided you have the strength, but I’m not going to let you use my particle accelerator to turn back the clock. This is the end, Henry. Your family didn’t deserve to die, but you need to make peace with the fact that they’re gone now and that there’s nothing you can do to change that.”_

Henry didn’t have any words left to say to Harrison. His vision was swallowed up by his hatred. It lit a fire in his veins, providing him with the edge he needed to surge up and into the threshold of the Cortex, stopping just a few feet away from where Harrison was standing in front of the main console.

Startled, Harrison spun around sharply on his heel. He was afraid, that much was clear, but, as always, he made no attempt to escape.

Voice vibrating now, Henry straightened to his full height and took a measured step forward. _“When I’m finished with you, I'm sure you’ll change your mind. We’ll determine what they did wrong on the other side and then you **will** repair the particle accelerator, Harrison, so help me God...”_

“No, I’m not,” Harrison said, rather decisively, which was the same time Zoom noticed the guard standing in the Cortex a little off to one side, gun raised, squeezing the trigger as he shot Henry square in the chest with one of S.T.A.R. Labs’ trademark tranquilizer darts.

Zoom reached out for Harrison then but phased right through the man.

He also inevitably phased through the floor.

Terrified, he dipped as far down as he dared go into the speed force and focused it all into his legs as he landed hard on the level below and took off for the stairwell once again. This time he ran up to the main floor and disappeared out the door, passing by the first two police cruisers to arrive on the scene

As much as it annoyed him to let Harrison slip away like this, he knew at least one sure-fire way to bring the man back around to his way of thinking…

It looked as though Jesse Wells was going to meet him personally after all.

~***~

It took him three days to fully recuperate.

Three days of utter agony.

There were moments when he blacked out completely, only to wake up hours later on the floor. It felt as though something was trying to pull him apart, rearranging the very fabric of his being. And during those three days, he slowly came to terms with the fact that he was probably going to die.

But he didn’t.

Whether Harrison genuinely intended to maim him or if he built his machine to kill Henry and failed, he couldn’t tell. This had been one of the most horrifying experiences of his life, second only to losing his family and being framed for their murder.

While he was incapacitated, he half expected Harrison to smarten up and leave town. He was therefore only mildly surprised to see the man’s picture still printed on the front page of every newspaper, referring to very few details concerning his capture, but going into great depth about his plans to take down the remaining metahumans in Central City. Then again, Henry supposed the man couldn’t afford to leave now, not when the humans needed someone of their ilk to promote a greater degree of solidarity among them…

There was also the curious case of Harrison’s daughter.

When Henry could manage it, he hunted her down. Found her standing outside her apartment complex nearby Central City College, a duffle bag hiked up over her shoulder as she argued with her father. Just a few paces away, two heavily armed police officers stood watching.

From the alleyway, Henry could only catch snippets of their heated conversation, but it was enough to get the gist of what was going on—

“—not going to just get up and _leave_ ,” the girl snapped, tearing her arm away from Harrison. She softened though at his pained expression. “Dad…I just got you back. If you stay, _I_ stay.”

“Jesse, _please_. The particle accelerator should’ve completely stripped him of his powers but it _didn’t_. Once he’s fully recuperated he _will_ come for us.”

The girl glanced back at the apartment doors. Then she tilted her head to one side in agitation and said, “Fine, whatever…Can I at least grab a few things from my place first?”

“No,” Harrison said definitively.

Little Jesse Wells looked completely shocked, but Harrison didn’t give her a chance to protest. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and led her to the curb, where a car was parked and waiting.

Agitated as he was by his missed opportunity, Henry disappeared back into the alleyway.

Sooner or later, Harrison and the girl would let their guard down.

~***~

Aware that he needed to figure out what happened with the wormhole on the other side of the rift _before_ Harrison came up with a way to close the portals, Henry realized he would have to journey back to the parallel world sooner rather than later. Before he could do that, however, he still had to deal with the Flash, who was, from what Zoom had seen, not the easiest metahuman to eliminate.

Thankfully though, Albert Rothstein was just as difficult to take down.

Even at his normal height, Rothstein’s strength was beyond human standards. And as he grew, so too did that strength, to the point where a swift kick from the 60ft giant could easily fell a city block. In fact, he was one of Garrick’s most formidable foes and certainly one of the National Guard’s least favourite criminals to deal with in their hero’s absence.

Fortunately for Henry, the Atom Smasher was oddly open to the idea of hunting down the parallel Flash.

Especially when Zoom was quite literally holding the man’s heart in the palm of his hand.

While Garrick had always fumbled to get a handle on his powers, Henry was consistently pushing its boundaries. Essentially, even though Rothstein could break almost every bone in Garrick’s body with a well-placed hit, the man couldn’t so much as _touch_ Henry when the speedster was vibrating quietly on the spot. That was why Rothstein visibly cowered away as Zoom approached him one night and slowly phased his arm into the metahuman’s chest.

“What could you possibly want from me?” Rothstein asked, voice sounding remarkably small and weak for a man his size.

_“I want you to kill the Flash.”_

Rothstein stared at him in disbelief. “But…but you already killed him. We saw you two fighting the night he disappeared.”

_“There is another.”_

“Another? …Where?”

_“On the Other Side.”_

Frightened and confused, the man seemed to realize that he had no hope in hell of getting a straight answer out of Zoom, so he nodded slowly and said, “If I kill him for you, do you promise to let me go?”

Behind his mask, Henry smiled.

_“You have my word.”_

~***~

Rothstein failed.

And _not_ _only_ did he fail, but his defeat changed something inside the other Flash. Henry could feel it through their shared connection…this little triumph had somehow made the hero _stronger_.

Accordingly, it made Zoom _weaker_.

The favourite son indeed…

~***~

His next best bet for killing the Flash was the Sand Demon, Eddie Slick, the sort of man whose hatred of Jay Garrick and heroes in general was perhaps only greater than his own, but Henry was momentarily delayed in his plans to send another criminal to the other side when an opportunity to get Harrison Wells back under his thumb finally presented itself.

Fortunately for Henry, Jesse Wells was every bit her father’s daughter.

Harrison kept the girl cooped up at his place for days on end under constant supervision by the CCPD, but she was a headstrong girl and a student and she burst out the front door one day with her father hot on her heels as she marched toward the car parked in front of their house.

“I agree with you—I _really_ do,” she said, turning sharply to face her father. “I promise I’ll be on that plane tonight. However, since I have _no_ idea when I will be returning to Central City again—if _ever_ —and since I wholly intend to graduate this year, I would like to work something out with the College so that I can still complete my courses.”

Harrison took a deep breath. Agitated, he ran a hand through his wild hair. “…Please don’t tell me you plan on going to any of your classes today.”

“Dad…”

“Is there any particular reason you enjoy aggravating me like this?”

“ _Dad_ ,” she repeated firmly, though gently. She took a step closer to him then and placed both of her hands on his shoulders, giving them a comforting squeeze. “You slayed the beast…It’s over now.”

“We don’t know that.”

“Well, with any luck, that maniac vibrated straight through the surface of the earth and is now trapped somewhere in the toasty depths where he belongs. In the meantime, _I’m_ going to talk to Dr. Cho and explain to her that I won’t be applying to work in her lab next year because there’s a very good chance the _boogeyman_ might get me...”

“Don’t joke.”

She leaned up to kiss him on the side of the mouth, then turned away toward the car. “I love you, daddy.”

“Jesse…”

She paused with her hand on the car door, glancing back at her father with a familiar quirk at the corner of her lips, the same confident curl Harrison usually had whenever something amused him. “Yeah?”

“…I love you too.”

She winked at him, then disappeared into the vehicle, the poster girl of carelessness and youth.

From his position by the road, shaded by the trees, Henry Allen smiled.

~***~

It took a considerable amount of energy to destroy the science building. It was worth it though. He’d missed the screaming civilians, scrambling to save themselves from falling debris as the building crumbled to the ground around them.

At the heart of it all, he found Jesse Wells limping toward an exit, having sprained her ankle and scuffed up her knees. When she caught sight of him she froze completely, paralyzed by her fear.

She didn’t scream when he took her though.

She didn’t even scream when he dragged her down into the abandoned subway station and hung her up in the empty elevator shaft.

Quite honestly, he was a little impressed.

“You’re him…” she breathed, trembling. “You’re still alive.”

_Your father’s mistake.”_

Her pretty little face twisted into something cold and miserable then. “Maybe, but my father never makes the same mistake twice. When he gets his hands on you, you’re _through_.”

Henry laughed.

He dipped farther into the speed force then, sparks dancing up his arms and legs as he took a step closer. Frightened by the electric show, the girl shied away.

_“You’re just as feisty as he is.”_

“He’s not afraid of you, y-you know—”

 _“Let’s_ _see if you sound like him too…”_

With that, he reached out to touch her sternum, channeling the energy of the speed force through her squirming body.

 _Then_ little Jesse Wells screamed.

And she did indeed sound just like her father.

~***~

He let Harrison mull over what had happened for a day. Then the following night Henry returned to the warehouse, which had long since been raided by the police and was empty now since it became apparent that ‘Zoom’ knew he could no longer use the space as a prison.

A little while after midnight, Harrison showed up. He walked into the room that Henry had kept him in, completely unarmed, and stood in front of one of the barred up windows by the bed, staring through it at the river. When Zoom entered the room a second later, Harrison slowly turned to face him and asked, “What did you do to my daughter?”

_“You failed me.”_

_”What_ —” Harrison hissed, “—did you do to my daughter?”

 _“As a widower yourself, your unwillingness to turn back time never made much sense to me,”_ Zoom explained. _“However, I think I understand now what was holding you back: you only suffered half the grief.”_

Confused, Harrison narrowed his eyes at him. “ _Half_ the grief?”

 _“Half the grief,”_ Zoom replied, “ _from half the loss.”_

Realization dawned on Harrison then, and it was a beautiful thing, because Harrison almost vibrated himself when he was consumed with a rage such as this, hands curled into fists at his sides, eyes watering as he took a step forward. “You _killed_ her! _You killed_ _my daughter_!”

_“I think **now** we can finally see eye to eye, wouldn’t you agree?”_

“Henry, _you_ —!”

 _“ **Fix** the particle accelerator,”_ Zoom growled. _“The only way to save your family is by helping me save **mine**.”_

Harrison choked on whatever he was going to say next. Trembling, he reached out with one hand to brace himself against the metal frame of the bed. Shock was starting to set in for him.

 _“I’ll be seeing you,”_ Zoom added, before fleeing the room.

Harrison Wells was a smart man. Sooner or later, he would realize that this battle he’d started with Henry was one that he was never going to win, that if he just gave into Henry’s demands already he _would_ benefit from it in the long run…

The man just needed a little time alone to think.

~***~

Days passed.

Harrison Wells vanished.

Henry knew he wasn’t a coward though. So did the city. Already aware that Jesse Wells had been abducted, people speculated that Zoom inevitably got to Harrison too, that Central City’s public enemy number one put both of them out of their misery. But Henry knew that the man was only lying low, coming to terms with the newest upset in his life. Given time, he would return to S.T.A.R. Labs and continue his work on the particle accelerator, because Harrison had no other choice if he ever wanted to see his daughter alive again.

“…What did you do to him?” Jesse whimpered from where she was curled up on the floor in the elevator shaft.

_“I gave him an ultimatum.”_

“Whatever it is you want him to do, he’s not going to give in. He’s smarter than you think.”

_“I don’t doubt your father’s intelligence, woman, but his obstinacy does him no favours.”_

She muttered something else to him that he didn’t quite catch, but he was too busy to bother carrying on the conversation between them, trying to figure out where he was going to find the Sand Demon.

He found Slick eventually in a seedy bar in Keystone City and carried him through another portal to the other side. He also made the man the same deal he offered the late Albert Rothstein: If he killed the Flash, Zoom would be more than happy to return him home.

But just like Rothstein, Eddie failed.

The Flash grew ever stronger.

Henry began to fear the worst.

~***~

Eventually, he finally understood where the enigmatic Harrison Wells had disappeared off to.

Henry pieced it together after realizing that some of the gadgets Harrison once stored in his office were missing, including the newest model of his tranquilizer gun. Henry then had to wonder if Harrison was foolish enough to think he could whip up some other weapon use against Zoom, so he tore apart the sublevel labs in Harrison’s facility, searching for clues, and almost took off for Mercury Labs next before he realized there was one other place in the building the man could be hiding…

Sure enough, Harrison had evidently dragged some of his other equipment down to the room they once worked in together. Harrison himself wasn’t there at the moment though, which annoyed him at first, but then he realized something was off about the room itself as he walked around the old treadmill and caught sight of the portal, which was blue now instead of translucent, and which didn’t waver as Henry approached.

It wouldn’t show him what was on the other side then either, which was why Henry didn’t dare touch it. Harrison could’ve set up a trap in the parallel universe for all he knew. The man was rather fond of doing that.

At first, Henry couldn’t think straight, so blinded was he by his rage. But then he felt sick, because Harrison was a desperate man in a desperate situation and the only person in the world who knew all of Henry’s weaknesses.

Oh, the damage the man could do on the other side…

It truly was a race against time now to find Harrison and kill the Flash.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: There will be a third installation, but not for a long while yet, because I would like to see what other tidbits of information the show shares with us before I go any farther. Thank you ever so much for joining me on this wild ride though! You guys are a real bunch of troopers. ;)
> 
> All comments and concerns are welcome, especially if you want to bounce your own 'Zoom Theories' off my overinflated head...
> 
>  
> 
> _*collapses from exhaustion*_


End file.
